Banking on Investec to lift JSE

Thursday is a busy day for JSE watchers‚ with banking group Investec‚ fishing group Oceana‚ computer group Datatec and construction group Stefanutti Stocks expected to release results.

It is also a busy day on the economics front‚ with Statistics SA scheduled to release March’s debt case figures at 9am‚ wholesale trade sales at 10am‚ motor trade sales at 11.30am and building statistics at 1pm.

Following its slide to R12.65 to the dollar on Tuesday‚ the rand recovered and was trading at R12.43 to the dollar‚ R14.69 to the euro and R16.84 to the pound at 7am.

Naspers’s 31%-owned Hong Kong-subsidiary Tencent was up 5% to HK$416.40 ahead of the JSE’s opening. Tencent released better-than-expected results on Wednesday after the Hong Kong Stock Exchange closed‚ sending Naspers up 5.2% to R3‚26.

Investec has not issued a trading update as would be required if its earnings differed by more than 20%.

In a pre-close briefing on March 16‚ Investec said two of its divisions — asset management‚ and wealth and investment — improved their results while specialist banking suffered a decline from the previous year.

Oceana said on April 10 that it expected to report on Thursday that basic and headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the six months to end-March grew by up to 65%.

The fishing group said the increase was largely attributable to the release of $13m deferred taxation in US subsidiary Daybrook following the reduction in the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

“The solid performance of the canned fish segment was driven by increased sales volumes and improved margins owing to lower raw material and logistics costs‚ while horse mackerel and hake earnings benefited from increased volumes due to improved vessel utilisation and good catch rates‚” Oceana said.

Datatec warned shareholders on May 10 that it expected to report on Thursday that it fell into a headline loss per share for the year to end-February of up to 21.1 US cents from HEPS of 2c in the previous year.

Construction group Stefanutti Stocks said on April 26 that it expected to report on Thursday that its HEPS for the year to end-February grew about nine times from the previous year’s 10.94c.

It would‚ however‚ report a basic loss per share of up to R3.05 due to booking a R667m goodwill impairment.